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Apologize for that. I got hit with that like five minutes before church. I just want to remind you that the Bible is very clear that small children that die go to heaven. All right, keep your place in Proverbs chapter 22. Now I'm going to scream at you on how to raise your kids after all that. All right, Proverbs chapter 22. You know, David said, he shall not come to me, I shall go to him. OK. All right, so we're in the Seasons of Life sermon series. You've learned about the single life. We talked about the single life. We talked about the married life. This morning we're going to talk about, you know, you've gotten married and now you have small children in your house. I guess I have to ask you, first off, do you believe the Bible this morning? Do you believe the Bible this morning? When it tells you something that is contrary to how you feel or how you may, you know, what you feel you should do, are you going to listen to the Bible in your life is what it boils down to. You know, will you listen? So, you've got small children. We're talking about raising small children. So let me ask you this. What are your goals with your children? You know, have you thought about that? You know, if you have one or two or more small children, you know, what are your goals with them? What are your goals for those children's lives? I mean, have you spent time before those children were born or now that they are with you to think about what those goals are? I used to work with a guy. I worked at a power plant many years ago and this power plant provided the electricity for almost the entire state of Minnesota, this one power plant. And this one man was in charge of every two years this plant would need maintenance and it would get shut down for 30 days. So this plant that was super important and provided so much energy was shut down for 30 days and this one man, it was his job to manage all that work and to plan all that work. And he's one of the better leaders that I've ever worked for in my life. And one thing that he would do is before, months before this shutdown happened, we would all be just forced to sit in these meetings and just go over the plan again and again. And again, it became a joke amongst us lower level people that would go to these meetings. They'd, oh, another outage meeting, another outage meeting. But this guy, we would go over this plan so much that by the time the actual shutdown happened, everyone knew it like the back of their hand. They would just execute. Nothing ever went wrong. Because, and the guy would always say this, he would always say, you plan your work and you work your plan. He would say that over and over and over and over and over and over and over. We're just like, oh, another meeting. He said it again. But it worked. So he had very clear goals. And that's a secular example. But if I knocked on your door, we knock on a lot of people's doors, right? If I knocked on your door and said, what are your goals for your children? What would you tell me? Would you have an answer for me? What would you tell me? Is what I'm asking you this morning. Let me just give you my goals for my children. My goals basically boil down to basically three things. The first goal that I have for my children in their lives is that they fear the Lord and serve Him with their lives. That's the first thing. You could really say that that is that they fear and love the Lord. Because I want them to fear the Lord and if they serve Him with their lives, that means that they're keeping the commandments and they're doing what God's asked them to do. So that my children fear and love the Lord is my first goal for my children. My second goal is that they grow up to love their parents, their spouses, and their siblings. That's my second goal for my children. And my third goal is that they will choose spouses that have the same first two goals, basically. I mean, that seems pretty simple, right? The way of this world, I mean, you think about the things that we've talked about since this church started the way of this world is a huge random number generator as far as how the world wants you to raise your children. I mean, it's just random. As you send, most people have no defined goals, number one, for their kids. And number two, they're sending them off to all these institutions like daycare centers, like public schools, like colleges. They go off, they marry random people, and it's just a random situation. So you wonder, not to go off on a tangent, but you wonder why so many siblings grow up to be adults and grow up so different and grow apart from their brothers and sisters. I mean, it's not hard to understand how it's happening. You know, I've seen many situations in my life where when the parents die, the children just have nothing to do with each other at that point. Because they've all grown apart. They've all grown apart, they've married different people, they're raising their children in different ways. I mean, it makes sense, right, that it's just a random situation out in the world, there's no goals, it's just random what they'll fall into, everything's random, the school's teaching them all these random different things that have nothing to do with the Bible, that are opposite from the Bible, it's random who they marry, it's random how they decide to, what philosophy they choose to raise their children. So what makes, I mean, why would you hang out with somebody who has nothing in common with you, right? So I mean, that's why the Bible says in Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity, that's what it means. You choose your friends, especially when you're an adult. Okay, and many times, by the way, these sibling rivalries where siblings grow apart, a lot of times there's resentment from childhood as well. Okay, so these are all things to think about. So I don't want, look, I don't want it left up to randomness for my family, I wanna control the situation, I wanna do exactly what the Bible says that I'm supposed to do when I'm raising my kids, and you know, I'm doing it in an imperfect way, like everyone else is, but the Bible gives us this framework and here's the thing, if you do decide to do this, everything and almost everyone will be against you. So it's going to take some fortitude, look down at Proverbs 22 if you kept your place there. Proverbs 22 and verse number six, the Bible says, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. So the way he should go, these are the goals that you set for your child. The way he should go, your goals are the way he or she should go, and those goals should be based on the Bible, okay? And when he is old, the Bible says, he will not depart from it. Left to themselves, children will go the wrong way. That's the bottom line. So you have to look at this small children's situation as an emergency situation, because whether you like it or not, they're getting older every single day. They're getting older every single day. You gotta think of it as a car heading towards a cliff that needs to be steered away from the cliff. And not only do you have to figure out a plan to steer it away from the cliff, you need to know what direction to point the car once you get it steered away from the cliff. So there's two things. So this morning, all that just for introduction, this morning, I just wanna give you two simple tips on how to train your child in the way he should go according to the Bible. Two simple steps, okay? The first step is this. You must define structures and boundaries. Turn to Exodus 20. Exodus 20. We talked about the 10 Commandments a week or so ago. When you think about it, think of God's law. God's law is a set of structures and boundaries for us. You think of the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments is the superstructure, is the main frame of God's structure and boundaries for us in our lives. For us, we're not even talking about kids here. The rest of the Bible is the details, right? You think about the Book of Proverbs. The Book of Proverbs is the details. It's how to deal with your friends, how to deal with church members, how to deal with business, how to deal with your parents, how to deal with money, how to deal with everything. It's all the details of your life. How to be a husband, how to be a wife. It's all the details being filled in. So the 10 Commandments is structure and boundaries for us. Look at Exodus 20 in verse number nine. The Bible gives us some structure here. The Bible says in verse number nine, "'Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, "'but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, "'and that thou shalt not do any work, "'thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, "'thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, "'nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger, "'that is within thy gates.'" That is structure right there. That's a detail of structure in your life that God is giving you. So the first thing that children need in their life is structure, okay? They need structure. It will build confidence and help you train them properly. If you don't have structure, you can't train your child. It's your training framework. Think about it that way. The structure is a consistent life. Now consistency, you're gonna hear me say this word consistency again and again. Somebody at men's preaching night did a sermon on consistency. You cannot train without consistency. That's the first side note I wanna make before I really get into this. You will find if you wanna go read books on training, training anything, training athletically, training whatever, you will find that consistency is the most important part of training, is being consistent, period. Think of the military. Think of people that have been in the military. They're forced to wake up at a certain time. They eat every single meal at a certain time. They do activities at a certain time. They go to bed at a certain time, grown adults in the military. It's consistent again and again and again and again and again. They learn to shoot the same way again and again and again and again. It's consistent, it's training. That's how they are successfully training people in the military. It's a big part of training. Look, secular studies show that a structured family environment with a mom and dad, I mean, it has drastic impacts on children's future lives. I mean, secular studies admit this. Secular people, it's a big deal. So this means that small children in your life, they need structure. They need a set bedtime. They need a set time where they wake up every day. They need a set time where they eat breakfast, where they eat lunch, where they eat dinner, activities during the week. It all needs to be structured. And they need to learn that structure if you wanna be successful with your children. Look, this is the importance of the stay-at-home mom for young children. You think that being a stay-at-home mom with little kids, see, there's a way to do it completely wrong where it's not that hard. If you just put them in front of a TV and you just walk away and then you spend the rest of your day on Facebook or whatever. There's a way to do it wrong. But if you do it right, it's extremely difficult. Well, it's not necessarily difficult, it's just it takes time. It takes time to set up these structures to enforce these structures. It takes time to get a kid used to going to bed at eight o'clock or whatever that structure is. It takes time to get that training going. So there needs to be a consistent routine for children and sticking to it is a lot of work. Laying it down is a lot of work. And it's super important. So why is it so important to have this structure? It's important because of this. Without a structure, there can be no boundaries. So the boundaries are built. Think of the structure of your children's lives as the framework that encases their life. And then when you need to come, now you need to train them in boundaries. It's all about structure and boundaries. You can't have boundaries without structure, right? So, number two is this. You need to set boundaries that are consistent around that structured life, period. And then you need to consistently enforce this structure and boundaries. Turn back to Proverbs 22 if you've gotten away from there. And here's why. Look at Proverbs 22 in verse number 15. The Bible says this. It says, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. We'll get to the second part of that verse in a minute. Go over to Proverbs 29 in verse number 15. So it says foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. Look at chapter 29 in verse number 15. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bring his mother to shame. So I wanna focus in on this. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child and left to themselves, they will go in the wrong direction. You have to understand today, this morning, that the default is failure. Do you understand what I'm saying? If you do nothing, if you're a lazy parent and you do not do what the Bible says, the default is failure. It's not that it might work out or it might turn out right or it's some, you know, you're rolling the dice. The default is failure. Foolishness is already bound in their heart. You have to get it out. It has to be something that's removed. It's already there. Left to themselves, they will bring their mother to shame. Seen it many times. Turn to Proverbs 13. So you see that there must be correction. There must be corrective action taken with small children. That's what I'm trying to get you to understand. The default is failure. Plain and simple. Proverbs 13, 24 says this. He that spareth his rod, hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Look, you see this rod keeps coming up in the Bible. What the Bible is talking about here is spanking your children. It's talking about enforcing these boundaries with physical spanking. Okay, now let me give a disclaimer here. We are not for child abuse. Okay, what we are talking about is applying the Board of Education to the seat of knowledge, basically. We're talking about spanking your children on the place where God gave you to spank them, okay? If we ever find out that anyone is abusing their child or hitting their child in the head or doing something crazy like this, we will be the first ones to raise that to the proper authorities in this church. So please understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about spanking your children here, and that's what the Bible is talking about. The Bible is talking about physically enforcing these boundaries that you put on your children, all right? Now, Proverbs 23. Go to Proverbs 23, verse 13. That's pretty strong language where it says he that spareth his rod, hateth his son. Isn't that strong language? Doesn't that seem extreme, that he that spareth his rod, if you don't spank your children, you hate your son? I'm telling you this morning that if you don't spank your child this morning, and I mean spank your child in a proper way, you hate your child. I am old enough in my life to have seen dozens of times the results of people that do not properly discipline their children, dozens of times. And you know what, those people, they must hate that child because that child's life is ruined. I'm old enough to where I can see these children who are now 18, 19, 20 years old, 25 years old. That's how old I am. But they've ruined their children's lives because they did not raise them properly, according to what the Bible said. Proverbs 23, 13. Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shall beat him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from hell. Whoa, more extreme language. Deliver his soul from hell? Yes, because your child's salvation is directly related to how you discipline them, period. What I'm saying is if you don't discipline your child properly, there's a chance that they might not get saved. Did you hear what I said at the beginning of the sermon, where I said everyone is against you? Everyone's against you in this world. Everyone in this world is against your child sitting in a Bible-preaching church, being homeschooled, learning what the Bible says and not what the world is teaching them. Everyone's against it. Do you know how many saved people that are currently living for the Lord right now that have unsaved children that I know? You're nodding your head because you know them too. There's a lot of them. You think it's guaranteed that because you come to this church that your children will end up saved and you can just let your hands off the reins? Nope. Think about your children's children, even past that. You're passing this on. You're passing this on. So let's talk about spanking. Let's talk about spanking your kids. Here's the main reason. I could just throw my notes away right now. Here's the main reason people don't spank their kids in my experience because I don't like it. I don't want to because I love my child. But what I'm telling you today is do you believe the Bible? Because what is love? You're all brainwashed on what you think love is in this world, I'm telling you right now, because love is doing what the Bible says. Love is not being this person who's driven by their emotions and someone who can look at the Bible and have enough faith that that's what God told you to do and it's for good reason. It's for good reason. Brother David last week, we're sitting after church and Brother David says, a couple guys are sitting around and Brother David says, I really don't like spanking my son. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, but he spanks him all the time, I know he does. I've seen that kid dragged out of here several times to get spanked, but you know what? He's also a two and a half year old kid that I see sitting in church constantly, quiet and well behaved. But he's like, I don't like spanking my son. Well, thank you for being a man, a godly man that will shut down your own emotions and just listen to what the Bible says. Your children will thank you for that one day, for actually being a man and not letting your emotions rule you. I don't like it either. You think I come home from work and Heidi tells me that, oh, Garrett needs to be spanked, he was throwing water balloons at the dog. You think that's, you know, I'm sitting at work and you think I wanna go home and spank my kids? No, but I do it because I love them and if I didn't do it, I hate them. You know, and I don't sit there and I don't think that, you know, he's evil because he was throwing water balloons at the dog, but it's something that needs to be stopped and needs to end, so it ends. Look, I've been humbled. Don't you think that I'm standing up here acting like I'm a perfect parent? I've been humbled by my kids more than I can even count. Times where I'm like, oh, I wonder whose kid did that. It was mine, but I dealt with it swiftly and according to the way the Bible tells me to deal with it and that's what you have to do. No matter what, you know, your emotions are telling you, I wanna go home and I wanna have Nerf gun wars. I wanna go home and I wanna play Airsoft. I wanna go home and do fun things, but we're gonna get the water balloon dog thing taken care of first and then we will go do those fun things, okay? So that's the first thing. People just don't want to because it goes against, you know, this emotion. You don't wanna spank your cute little kid, but you have to. It's serious business, folks. I've seen it end in complete disaster. You have to do it. Other common excuses, let's just go through some because I've got a lot of them. I've heard them over the years. Spanking doesn't work for my child. That's a good one. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, I'd be a billionaire right now. If spanking doesn't work for your child, here's the thing, your child's not special, you are not doing it right. It works. The Bible says it works, so it works. If you're spanking your child and they don't care, you know, you can't spank them on the outside of the diaper and swat them. It needs to be something that is deliberate and done. You look at the women at Verity Baptist Church, if you've ever visited there, it's like they're a bunch of warriors going to war. I'm not kidding. They walk into church and they've got a purse and they've got a stick hanging out of their purse like this and they're not messing around. And they use that stick every single day. So they know how to spank their kids at that church. So if you're spanking your kids and it's not having any effect, you are not doing it right, you need to talk to somebody and ask, how should I spank my kids? And someone in this church will show you, will tell you, not show you. Okay? Number two, excuses. And this is really dangerous. So please, listen up if you're one of these people. They're sick. They're tired. They're hungry. They're bored. This is my favorite one. My child is just so highly intelligent that he's bored all the time because he's just so smart. I heard that one a lot as well. It's like, yeah, my kid's an idiot. That's why I have to spank him all the time. I mean, what are you supposed to say to that? Look, just think of this for a second though, seriously. A child whose parent is always defending them and never thinks anything is their fault, how will they grow up thinking that they're a sinner that needs to be saved? How will they ever come to that point in their life where they're like, oh, I need salvation? It's a big deal. Don't make excuses for your kids. I always default to guilty with my kids. If somebody ever comes to me, there's not even a trial. It's just guilty. And I think I've spanked maybe once or maybe twice in error. But other than that, and I don't think they're too messed up about it to be honest. Other than that, I don't make excuses for my kids. I am harder on my kids than any other adult should be. That's how it should be. And God forbid any person ever comes to you about your kid and you don't take that seriously. Because by the point, especially, we don't really have a culture here where people tattle on other people's kids. If somebody actually comes to you about your child, it's probably something serious, especially in this church. And we don't want to have that culture where everyone's ratting out everybody else's kids either. That's not the culture that we want here, okay? All right, number three. We just don't believe in spanking. Well, that's an easy one. You just don't believe the Bible. Period. All right, so let's look at some application here, okay? Let's look at some application. So you set the structure in their life and you build boundaries around that structure. And then this is how it works, folks. This is why your life is gonna get easier today. You just set the structure, you build those boundaries, and when they deviate, they get spanked. That's it. That's it. It's that simple. I actually made a graph for you. I have a graph. This is my spanking curve graph I made for you this morning. This is how your child's life should look right here. Can everyone see that? The blue line is when they're about two years old. So each kid's life will be a little bit different, but basically the amount of spankings that they get should follow that type of pattern. I believe this here is about 10 to 12 years old down here at the bottom, okay? Because look, if you don't have control of your kids, we need to see it again, when they're toddlers, basically, from two to three to four years old, they should be getting spanked constantly. It's normal. You're teaching them to stay within those boundaries. That's the way it should go. They should be getting spanked all the time. You say, that's mean. No, it's loving. You're setting those boundaries up for them. It must be the way it's going. Do you think that I'm putting my 18-year-old across my knee? No, you gotta fix these problems right away. You need to lay those tracks early in their life, okay? Turn to First Corinthians, chapter 14. So let me give you some examples of some boundaries. I'll just give you examples of the boundaries in this church and how you can help enforce those boundaries. I don't have a lot of rules for kids in this church. We haven't made a lot of rules for kids in this church. We're a small church. There's not too many serious things that have been going on here, so there's not that many rules. But look at First Corinthians 14 and verse 40. The Bible says this. Let all things be done decently and in order, talking about the fellowship of the believers. As this church grows, there's probably gonna be more rules as far as kids' behavior in this church, as the church grows as we have more people walking around here, as there's maybe older ladies walking around. But look, we have some simple rules here. Don't touch the blinds is a simple rule, right? This is a super easy one. You should use this one to get these boundaries set right now. It's easy. You don't have to follow your kids around and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, it doesn't have to be like that. All you have to do is sit down, fellowship, keep an eye on your kids. They touch the blinds, spanked. It's easy. Within two days, it'll be done. They'll never touch the blinds again. It's really simple. I mean, the worst one we had, one of our kids was doing something, I can't remember, it was something simple. It wasn't something like, these are simple boundaries, right? These aren't things where you're like, they touched the blinds. Is he gonna be a reprobate? No, it's simple things. They just need to know the boundaries, okay? My wife was having a problem with one of the kids leaving a door open and it was just constant and she was constantly dealing with it years ago and she's finally just like, I'm just solving this and she spanked that kid like six times in one day. No more problems with the door. Boundaries, that's it. The blinds is an easy one. The stage, easy one. Go on the stage, spanked, done. Then just relax and fellowship. I mean, here's the thing. Your kids are gonna be happier too. Like, undisciplined kids are the most miserable kids you will ever meet in your life. They're constantly screaming. They're constantly upset about something. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, I remember years ago we were watching some kids being raised that we were always around. They were relatives of ours and I'm just like, why are they doing it that way? Their kids are miserable. They don't wanna discipline their kids but their kids are the most unhappy kids I've ever seen in my life. It's crazy. So just simple boundaries. I mean, we don't have that many boundaries here but use those as training. Now, the boundaries in your home, you decide. You decide. Sit down with your husband or your wife and you decide what your boundaries in your home are gonna be. But you gotta decide because what's the big thing you have to do? You have to be consistent. I mean, it's not fair for you to change the rules on a two-year-old every other day. I mean, that's not gonna train them to do anything. You know, you just need to set those boundaries, folks, and be consistent. Look, few things, just so you know, few things are more important to me than the kids enjoying themselves in this church. Okay, and that's why we don't have that many boundaries here but use those two little simple boundaries as training tools. It's a perfect way to do it. But look, aside from those two rules, here's another good way to do it. When you see yourselves, when you see a bunch of kids playing games or when you see the normal social environment going on and you have one kid who's just outside that environment, he's either wrecking the game or he's punching kids or hitting kids or tackling kids or whatever, that's outside the normal environment. Take care of that. That's a boundary that you should set, okay? That's a boundary. Now look, these are simple boundaries. In our family, we've had major boundaries as well. My wife and I have set up major boundaries that we consider like, I mean, not throwing water balloons at the dog type stuff, okay? Major, I just wanna give you a few of those. You don't have to take these but I would advise that you do because it's biblical, all right? Look, major boundaries that we have used is this. When these lines are crossed, the way I put it to my wife is if these lines are crossed with our children, I bring the world down over their ears big time. I come down on them hard so they know that something serious has just happened, okay? Now here's some major boundaries. Turn to 1 Samuel 3, 1 Samuel 3. The first major boundary that we have always set in our family is this. It's lying, is when your children lie to you and this will start at a very young age, lying and if you don't stomp it out, it will become a big problem because here's the thing, folks. It is really easy to tell when a five-year-old is lying to you. It is not so easy to tell when a 15-year-old is lying to you, especially if they've been lying to you for 10 years at that point. So lying is something that we have taken very seriously always in my family. Are you there in 1 Samuel 3, 18? So in 1 Samuel 3, 18, basically this is where God was calling Samuel. Samuel was working for Eli. Eli had these wicked sons, okay? And God was calling Samuel in his sleep and basically Samuel got up three times and Eli said, go and listen to what the Lord has to tell you and then Eli, you know, or Samuel, the Lord told little Samuel, he was a young child, the Bible says and the Lord told him that basically he was gonna bring down and judge the house of Eli. So imagine this situation. You have this young child who is told by God that basically his boss or his mentor or his father figure is gonna be basically destroyed by God. His house is gonna be judged by God. Don't you think that there's a pretty strong temptation there for Samuel to not tell the truth when Eli asks him what the Lord said to you? Because Eli knew that God told him something and he said, tell me everything that he told you. Look at verse 18. And Samuel told him every wit and hid nothing from him and he said, it is the Lord and this is Eli said, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth good. This shows you the character of Samuel that he did not lie even as a young child to Eli. When there was a lot of, you know, incentive for him, probably in his young mind to lie and not tell the whole truth at that point but Samuel told the truth. Lying is a big deal. You need to take lying seriously with your children because if they lie about small things to you and you either decide not to punish that, it will get worse and worse and worse and you do not want to have a teenager living under your roof that is constantly thinking that they can lie to you, okay? That will be disaster for you and for them. The second one is this. Back talk or disrespecting your parents. This is treated with the same severity in our house as lying. This will be a problem that is literally unsolvable if you let it go. Unsolvable. It could quite possibly ruin your child's entire life if you allow this to go. What am I talking about? It starts with temper tantrums. Temper tantrum, this is how it's dealt with in our house. Temper tantrum over anything, spanked. They won't stop the temper tantrum, spanked again. It all begins with temper tantrums. It begins with telling your parents no, go do that, no. Whoa, you better, my kids said that to me one time. Because you better see red and take care of that issue right away if your kids start defying you and showing you disrespect because that will turn into something that is unfixable in their life. And if you don't fix it, you hate them. Do you understand what the Bible is saying? It says you hate them. It leads to eye rolls, outright disrespect. I mean, think about it. I've met adults who are 30 years old who I can tell have never had a parental figure in their life who they have had to respect. They can't hold a job. They get kicked out of churches. Their life is ruined. If I hated them, that's what I would wish for their life. You see? You see how it all works together? Here's another one that we've never allowed and that we consider a major boundary in our home and that is this, it's physical violence. Physical violence, especially towards their siblings. Pushing, hitting, kicking, et cetera. Basically anything that could be considered assault by an adult. And I won't put up with it here either. I've not seen it here, but I won't put up with it here either. We will not have kids come to this church that are worried about getting knocked down or pushed around or whatever. It won't happen here, I promise you that. I will step in in those types of situations. It's not cute. It's not cute. And you know what? This, I have also seen 60, 70 year old adults who still hold resentment for how their brothers treated them when they were little kids. Think about that. Don't you ever let your boys lay a hand on your daughters, ever. They would do it one time in my house and that's it. It was a big deal. A big deal. I mean, I want them, that was part of my goals. That they have good relationship with their siblings, right? Look, those are some major lines that we've always held in our house. Let's look at some serious, you say I don't know, I don't know if I can do this, I don't know if I want to. Let's look at some implications of what will happen if you don't believe the Bible and you don't do this. So the first serious implication is this. They will learn to not respect authority in their life. And that's that kid that I told you about. Children who don't learn boundaries at a young age will not have boundaries as adults. And it's possible that the federal government could give them those boundaries. Unfortunately, I've seen that one too. Yeah, it's a really sad case. Look, it'll cause problems in their marriage, with their jobs, with their church, life in general. And ultimately, they could end up in prison. Turn to First Samuel chapter two. You have to teach your kids to respect the authority in their life. I can tell right away a kid also that doesn't get disciplined, if I walk by a kid, and I'm like, hey, can you guys pick that stuff up? And they don't even look at me as another adult, as not their parent. If your children don't have any respect for you, they're sure not gonna have any respect for any other adult either. So that's very obvious with kids. Everyone knows, by the way, by the time they're two, three, four years old, everyone knows who's spanking their kids and who's not, because it's very obvious. I mean, the path is like this for these kids. It's crazy. While you're turning to First Samuel two, let me read you Hebrews 13 seven. Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they might do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you. If you read Proverbs, you will see that over and over again, it talks about the grief of the mother, or the shame of the mother. Your child could grow up, women, ladies, mothers, to be a shame unto you. That's what Proverbs just says it again and again and again, is a child who just isn't disciplined and is not going the right way will just be a shame unto their mothers. Did you turn to First Samuel chapter two? Here's the second point. They will learn to not fear the Lord. If they don't fear you, well-disciplined children will, what will they end up doing sooner than other kids? They will end up sitting in church sooner than other kids. They will learn the word of God faster. I mean, when I sit here and I look at young children sitting in church listening to the word of God, they're picking that up. They're eventually gonna start asking their parents, hey, mom, dad, am I going to heaven? I go out soul-winning with you and we talk to all these people about going to heaven and am I gonna go? Because I'm doing bad things according to the Bible and all this type of stuff and all of a sudden, that's what leads to their salvation. They're trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Just think about what pastor brought up a few weeks ago. You know, the mother-baby room. If the mother-baby room is treated like a playroom, why would a kid ever want to sit in church? I mean, just think about that. It was just a place where they get to go. I mean, when my kids left church, they left church to get spanked from the very beginning, all three of them. I mean, when they were getting taken out of church, it was never for a good reason. It was always to get spanked. You know, we gotta think about, you know, when I was, you ushers now are kind of doing the same rotation, but when I would sit security at Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, it's really funny because I would see the kids that were getting dragged out to get spanked all the time. And the funny thing is, I always hated to see, I didn't hate to see it, but I was always like, oh man, because it was always the nicest kids getting dragged out to get spanked all the time. And isn't that funny? It wasn't a coincidence, because the nicest kids are the nicest kids because they're getting spanked all the time. That's why. So look, we have to remember that, you know, disciplining our children and using the mother baby room properly, you know, that's a culture that we need to have here, because there's gonna be visitors that come into this church. There's gonna be visitors that come into this church and want to have a small child and want to watch the service and not have a circus going on in there. You know what I mean? So let's keep that in mind as well. It's not fair to mothers who want to listen to the preaching, like Pastor brought up. So in conclusion, I just want to say this. Look, with the small kids, you're laying, think about it this way, you're laying the train tracks right now. You're laying the tracks. You're laying those tracks down. When those kids get older, the corrections that you're able to make are gonna get smaller. Does that make sense? The big corrections need to happen now. Look down at First Samuel chapter two. The methods are different in dealing with teenagers than they are with small children. We're gonna talk about that next week. The corrections are different. Look at First Samuel chapter two in verse number 24. Eli has heard of all the horrible things that his sons are doing. He's been told, I mean, I believe he already knew, but he's been told again and again. And in verse number 24, the Bible reads, "'Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear. "'You make the Lord's people to transgress.'" They were doing all sorts of wicked things. In verse number 25, the Bible says, "'If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him. "'But if any man sin against the Lord, "'who shall entreat for him?' "'Notwithstanding, they hearkened not unto the voice "'of their father, because the Lord would slay them.'" Look, it was too late for Eli to correct this. You have to understand that if you have small children, there is a time clock running. You only have a certain amount of time to get them on the right tracks, to lay those train tracks down. So once again, what are the goals? Our goals are that our children fear the Lord and serve Him with their lives. That's number one. Number two, that the children grow up, that our children grow up to love their parents, spouses, and their siblings. Number three, that they choose spouses that will have these first same two goals. Look, ultimately, your children's salvation and your children's children's salvation is tied to how well you discipline your children. It's that simple. And if they do end up saved anyway, you know, just think of the last verse, verse number 25 of 1 Samuel chapter two. If they end up saved, because you're in a Bible-preaching church, how will they fear and respect the discipline of God when they never feared and respected yours? I mean, it's a good model. It's a good model. You know, you're looking at, like I said, you're looking at an imperfect parent this morning. I've not done everything right, and I don't claim to say that I've ever, I've always done anything right. But this is such an important sermon, and I hope you all listen to me this morning. You have to listen to the Bible here, okay? And men, this, you gotta set these structures and boundaries in your home. Okay? You gotta set these structures and boundaries, and then you have to enforce them. You have to enforce them. Now men, this is a big deal for you, this sermon, because I think that if you took my wife, and you gave her truth serum, and you told her that, hey, your husband will never find out, tell us what you really think, I think that there's a possibility that my wife would say that I was too hard on our kids. I think it's possible. But here's the thing, guys. No, I'm dead serious, listen to me. Women are ruled by their emotions more than men are. You are needed in this situation. You are needed here. So that's why I was so happy to hear Brother David say what he said a week ago, because all I see is over and over again is these feminized pansies in our society today who are just completely ruled by their emotions. Your children need you to actually be a man. That's what they need. They need you to be a man, and when a child needs to be disciplined, when there's a serious problem that needs to be corrected, and your wife might have a more sympathetic heart, you need to look at that situation logically, you need to look at what the Bible says, and you need to take some leadership and make sure that that enforcement happens. You understand? It's about being a man. That's why God gave children a mother and a father. So men, you are needed here. So next week, we'll look at raising older children. Let me just leave you with this. You know, an interesting point in Proverbs 22. You know, the Bible said, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it. In verse number one of 1 Samuel 2, it said about Hophni and Phinehas, they knew not the Lord, and in turn, they hearken not unto the voice of their father. You see how those two things tie together? So Proverbs 22, six says, they will not depart from it. If you teach them the way that they should go, which is the way of the Bible, it says when they're old, if you train them properly, when they're old, they won't depart from it, or the opposite being Hophni and Phinehas, they knew not the Lord, and they hearken not unto the voice of their father. They're reprobates, God killed them. They're sons of Belial, the Bible said. God killed them. You know, the last part of verse 25, it says, because God should kill them. He'd already decided he was gonna kill them for what they did. So it's the exact opposite with Hophni and Phinehas. If your children hearken not unto your voice, and they learn to not hearken unto your voice, they will not hearken unto the voice of their heavenly father. That's the bottom line. It's a big deal. Let's bow our heads and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the Bible. Lord, we thank you for all these practical tips that you've given us on how to raise children, Lord. We ask that you just give us the faith to just do what the Bible says, no matter what our emotions or what the world or what anyone around us tells us to do, Lord. We know that your way is right. We love our children. We wanna protect them from all these influences that are out there trying to drag them down. We wanna get this foolishness out of their heart, Lord. And you've given us the directions to do it. Just give us the faith to follow through. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.